Women Give to Causes More than Men

Ready to have your assumptions tested to the core about giving? A new study, Women Give 2010, from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute, a program of the venerable Institute on Philanthropy at Indiana University.  Are you ready?  Debra J. Mesch, Ph.D., director of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute has released a study of a large sample of women and men givers and found that, “Women across nearly every income category give significantly more than their male counterparts – in many cases, nearly twice as much.”

The conventional wisdom has always been that men give more money to nonprofits than women. Not just more often but more dollars. Part of the difficulty of looking at this issue is trying to determine whether the he or she is the lead giver for a married couple. This study teased apart this issue by just looking at single men and women along a continuum of income levels from $23,000 to 100,000. And lo and behold, women are giving more than men in every income bracket but one, the lowest one.

Here is an interesting tidbit: The study compared and controlled for different types of singles. Never married and divorced women were more likely to give and to give more than males of the same marital status; however, widowed men give more than widowed women, the study found.

And one more: 96% of the women in the study who earn more than $103,000 gave annually, on average $1,910 to charity. Only 75% of men in the same income category gave and their average gift was $984.

Blackbaud Research on Online Giving

I had great fun last week keynoting Blackbaud’s annual North America conference in DC. Here is the video of the keynote that I did in person and Beth did virtually. Here is the video of our presentation:

I was very pleased by the response from the attendees, but it’s not what stuck with me for the day. I attended a presentation later in the day by Blackbaud. Chuck Longfield, the company’s head of research gave a presentation on the state of fundraising on land and on line that the company gathers from it’s 24,000 nonprofit users (quite a data set!) Here is a link to the findings they were reporting on. I asked Chuck if he was seeing any trends in the behavior of donors whose entry point is online. Do they give less over time? Do they give once and never again? Are the size of their donations less than the ones given by donors who begin through an in person event or through direct mail?

Chuck said it’s too early to tell the trends in this area. But he did share a very, very interesting data point.  He said that donors who come through traditional means like direct mail, who then transition to online giving, give more over time! Chuck said it’s as if giving easier online just makes people give more. This is fascinating and surely gives an incentive to organizations to try to transition their donors to online giving as soon as possible. I discussed with Chuck my interest in understanding donors who come in through social media and he agreed its a key research area in the near future.

 

“Dos” and Just One “Don’t” Getting Started As A Networked Nonprofit

I had a great time last week with foundation and nonprofits executives in Chicago and Decatur, Il. The events in Chicago were hosted by the Donors Forum. Decatur event was hosted by Good Works Connect on the lovely campus of Milliken University.  Photos for the
Decatur event can be found here.

All of the events had younger people who tended to be more social media savvy but also more experienced professionals. But it wasn’t an even divided generationally – a cautionary note to folks like me who sometimes tend to see the world through a generational lens. At the Donors Forum, one of the most ardent advocates for social media use was an older gentleman named Marvin Cohen. There was a great openness to learning and sharing from everyone.

There is clearly an attitudinal shift happening in the social sector towards social media. The questions are no longer, “Why in the world should anyone do this?” and are now more of “How do I get started?” “How do I convince others within my organization to get on board?”

The answer to these questions of the “how do we get started variety” constitute a bunch of “Dos” I shared with them and will now share with you!

Do:

1. Have a conversation with your senior staff and board about the real fears that using social media invokes. Fears of losing control and opening one’s organization to outside critics are real and need to be talked about, but, as Beth says, as conversation starters not conversation stoppers.

2. Find yourself a social media mentor. Befriend a twenty something who can show you the ropes on Facebook, blogs, Twitter. The key is to block out the time for regular practice with your “reverse mentor” Think of it as learning to play the piano, it takes regular practice to become fluent.

3. Identify one experiment to try working as a Networked Nonprofit this year. Find something, a fundraiser, a conversation to have on Twitter, a video from a volunteer posted on YouTube. Something that isn’t too disruptive (a little disruptive, though, you do have a pulse!) that your organization can try, learn from, and try again.

And there is just one Don’t (in addition to “Don’t update your Facebook status in church”)

Please, please, please don’t use the phrase, “viral video’ before it’s been made. there is no such thing as a video that can be made to go viral. If there was, we’d all be making them! We hope something we do goes viral, passed from friend to friend on Faceobook, via email or word of mouth, but no one can make it happen. That’s why when something like “It Gets Better” goes viral it’s so special, there is some special sauce in it, some combination of its content, timing, creator that makes it sharable.

I asked the lovely nonprofit folks in Decatur to make me a promise not to use that phrase in the next year. Annie Hernandez promised she’d stay on top of it for me. Thanks, Annie!

The Dragonfly Effect

A new Social Good podcast has been posted. I interviewed Jennifer Aaker, the co-author with her husband, Andy Smith, of The Dragonfly Effect.

It’s a wonderful book for corporations and nonprofits. Rather than me tell you about it, I’ll let Jennifer and Andy do it:

I was really struck during my conversation with Jennifer on the focus she put on organizations tell one, great, simple, sticky story about what they do. An example she gave was Alex’s Lemonade Stand. Here is all you have to know about Alex’s Lemonade Stand:

Full Name- Alexandra Flynn Scott

Birthday- January 18, 1996

I’m Alex, I’m 8 years old. I have Neuroblastoma and I raise money for pediatric cancer research with the help of other kids and grown ups through my lemonade stand. I give the money I raise to research to find cures for pediatric cancers.

Who do I live with?
My parents, my brother Patrick, my brother Eddie, my brother Joey, my dog Shammy, and my cute kitten Herbert.

Where do I live?
I live in Pennsylvania, right down the street from Philadelphia.

Favorite Colors – Blue and Purple

Favorite Animal – Penguin

School – 2nd Grade

Favorite part of school – Everything

Favorite Food - French Fries

Favorite Book - Junie B. Jones Series and The Little House on The Prairie Books

Favorite Movie - Scooby Doo

Favorite TV Show - Pokemon and American Idol

What I want to be when I grow up – Fashion Designer

Favorite Activity - Making stuff and designing clothes

Place I most want to visit – France

Favorite Sport - Soccer

Social media channels are amazing and powerful vehicles for personal story telling. One of the best examples that you probably have heard about recently is the Youtube channel, It Gets Better, started by Dan Savage. The channel encourages anyone, particularly gay adults, to share their personal stories and struggles from teens to gay adulthood to support gay teens that are being bullied. Here is Dan and his partner, Terry Miller’s story:

Another new project that enables people to tell their own, unfiltered stories is Mark Horvath’s, HardlyNormal on Twitter, has a new site called We Are Visible. It is a toolset to enable homeless people to connect, share resources, and make their voices heard.

Jennifer Aaker made a great point in saying that social media is important not just for the storytelling, but to enable others to retell and share the stories. For people and organizations that are afraid to let others tell their stories, who fear the loss of control over their message, she said that a truly strong story will keep its essence through the retelling, and actually be strengthened by it.  Good stuff!

Jewish New Media Innovation Fund

The Jim Joseph, Charles and Lynn Schusterman and Righteous Persons Foundations announced this week the launch of the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund.

That’s quite a trio of heavy hitting Jewish foundations!

This year’s pilot program will award a total of $500,000 for projects that use new media tools—including video, digital communications, social networks, and more—to empower Jews to interact with, share, build, and explore Jewish life.

As described on the website, projects could be:

• Taking age-old Jewish traditions and using new media to reinvent them.
• Digging into our Jewish past, bringing forth content that has been forgotten or lost, and making it accessible to new audiences.
• Creating novel ways for individuals to interact with one another and form new communities.
• Engaging the next generation (18 – 40 year olds) in general, and the institutionally unaffiliated next generation in particular, in Jewish history, tradition, and rituals.
• Discovering new ways to engage new audiences, both Jews and non-Jews, in Jewish life, learning, culture, and community.

The website has a blog, an online application process (or RFP that can be downloaded), very clear criteria for the project’s success (not sure I’ve ever seen that as part of the announcement of a new grant program), a willingness to fund good ideas whether they are from an individual, a nonprofit, for profit or social enterprise. Start ups or established organizations are both welcome.

The only question I have is whether all of the applications will be posted so that even if an idea isn’t funded it might get an airing and find some kindred spirits.

This is a very exciting new grantmaking program, and one of the few foundation efforts to cast such a wide net in search of innovative approach to community building using social media. The only other one I can think of that’s comparable is the Knight News Challenge. The fact that the smart folks at Blueprint R&D were intimately involved in the project’s design might have something to do with that.

The application process closes on November 22nd.

Beantown Blowout for The Networked Nonprofit!

Beth and I have had a terrific day and a half in Boston as part of our national launch of The Networked Nonprofit.

Yesterday we had great events with the Barr Foundation, the Associated Grant Makers, and an event hosted by the Public Conversation Project and TechFoundation.

Great turnout at all of the events and great energy about the ideas in the book as well. A few themes emerged:

• Organizational leadership is inching their way towards engaging with social media. The conversation has shifted from “please don’t make me do this” to “how do I get started?”
• The fears of losing control are real. We are asking seasoned professionals, people who have spent decades becoming adept at managing organizations, serving communities, helping people, to substantively rethink their relationship to their work and the world. This is a HUGE undertaking and it’s important to recognize that it will take a lot of time and patience to succeed.
• And just as we need to be patient with senior leadership, so do they have to be patient with social media. A common refrain yesterday (and most days) is how can we measure the return on investment in social media. Meaning how do we raise money using the tools. Social media are not spigots for cash, not digital ATM machines. The tools work best when the focus is on relationship building, and as with any relationship, a trusting, long-term one takes time to develop.
• I am constantly reminded how early we are in the social media revolution. There is so  much to learn about what happens to people and organizations when they take the walls down, how to integrate online and on land efforts, how to get to social outcomes and impact using social media. So, stay tuned, the fun is just beginning!

Onto Chicago next week then DC the week after!

Ten Commandments of Social Networking

Here is a fun article by Jonah Lowenfeld of the Jewish Journal of LA, The Ten Commandments of Social Networking.

My favorites are:

1. I am the Web. “Thy God?” No, but don’t ignore my power.

Using social media is no longer optional. Across the denominational spectrum, leaders of communities and congregations are reaching out to Jews online.

3. Don’t hate the slacktivists. It’s all right to click in vain. (OK, I contributed to that one!)

Lou Cove, executive director of Reboot, a network of Jews thinking creatively about how to adapt Jewish traditions and rituals to today’s world, suggested another possible benefit to slacktivism: “The one advantage of friending and liking—even if you yourself don’t do much more—is that other people are going to see it,” Cove said, “and that might be the person who will get really inspired by it.”

But my favorite is this one:

4. Remember the Sabbath, keep it holy—and unplug.

In January, Reboot began circulating and discussing a list of 10 principles intended to help people carve a day of rest out of their hectic weeks. They called it the “Sabbath Manifesto”, and the first idea—“Avoid technology”—attracted the most attention.

I started shutting down for Sabbath a few months ago and LOVE it. Give it a try, it’s like a mini vacation every week.  Only three hours to shutdown!